The 'other' Grice -- Nowell-Smith at Trinity

by JLS
for the GC

THE REASON WHY NOWELL-SMITH is seldom quoted today, I submit, is that he said all we are hearing today from the moral philosophers and philosophers of actions, and we need 'original' work.

Consider his "Libertarians and determinists" (1954), a bit of a sequel to his earlier 1948 "Free will and moral responsibility" that you indeed quote.

I was delighted to see R. O. Doyle has an entry for Campbell, where he notes:

I-Phi, online

"In 1948 P. H. Nowell-Smith had raised this question again, asking what libertarians thought it could mean. The second half of Campbell's 1951 article attacked Moore's hypothetical construction of meaning for "could have done otherwise only if one had chosen otherwise.""

Indeed, again in this later essay, it's all about Campbell.

I think the historical connection with Austin's Play Group was due to the fact that Austin would sometimes amuse himself by criticising the views of other Play Group members.

This would NOT be very honest, but that's Austin.

(For example, I was fascinated to read from Austin's "Sense and sensibilia" and his rather detailed commentary on G. J. Warnock, a much younger scholar.)

Nowell-Smith was also Austin's senior (Austin, b. 1911, Nowell-Smith b. 1914 (I think)).

Grice ("Reply to Richards") said that Austin (like Witters) failed to grasp the 'implicature' (i.e. they would not recognise this distinction between what words mean or imply and what WE mean or imply by them. This cannot be levelled against Nowell-Smith, so I am enjoying the reading of the 1954 Mind piece much.

Since some of us are into listing philosophers, one may be interested that Nowell-Smith quotes Campbell as quoting McDougall.

Both Scots I assume, but have not been able to find much about this McDougall.

But this is Nowell-Smith,

“Here is a part of McDougall's description of what it is to make a moral effort.” (as cited by Campbell):

“Some attempt must therefore be made to show that the effort of volition . . . involves no new principles of activity and energy, but only a more subtle and complex interplay of those impulses which actuate all animal behaviour.... The source of that influx of vital energy which seems to play the decisive role in volition.... The conations, the desires and aversions, arising within this self- regarding sentiment, are the motive forces which, adding themselves to the weaker ideal motive in the case of moral effort, enable it to win the mastery over some stronger, coarser desire of our primitive animal nature and to banish from consciousness the idea of the end of this desire." "Quoted by Campbell, S., pp. 146-147"

It seems Nowell-Smith was into the 'pages of Mind', for all of Campbell's views were publicised in "Mind". There are some nice remarks by Nowell-Smith on the 'self' that relate to Grice's early 1941 "Mind" essay on "Personal identity".

I liked Nowell-Smith's emphasis on the 'may' (rather than the 'can'). We do say,

"It can rain tomorrow"

but that does not seem to elegant.

"It may rain"

sounds better. I mention this in connection with "could have done otherwise", versus "might have done otherwise", and so on.

I do have Nowell-Smith's Ethics (somewhere) and the thing is usually quoted in connection with his emphasis on 'contextual implications' (an antecessor of Grice's 'conversational implicature'). There are conversational illustrations that Nowell-Smith gives that remind one of things like Grice's examples in his 1971 "Intention and uncertainty".

I may go to that concert on Tuesday.

I must go to that concert -- if the police does not detain me
(Nowell-Smith's and Grice's example)

----

I also enjoyed Nowell-Smith's point that 'willing' is too technical a notion to be taken seriously, even if Tolstoy used it: "I will will that he turns round" I think the example goes.

Etc.